Obscenity From The Indian Context

Every generation must redefine notions of obscenity in the context of their times. Ancient India, under the dominance of Hindu rulers, had no issues with nudity. Or sex. Konarak, Khajuraho, the Kamasutra are clear examples of how open minded we once were as a nation, as a culture.
The gorgeous Sunita Menon may not have been around but, even in those days, long before Ekta Kapoor, the most popular things began with K. And no, no one complained. No one saw them as obscene.
Then came the Muslim invasion. The early guys were fine but, as they settled in, the Mughal rulers got more and more uptight till Aurangzeb, clearly anticipating three centuries ago our home minister R R Patil's ideas, banned music, dance, alcohol and, despite his many wives, made sex into a dirty word, to be proscribed in public and suffered only in the bedroom.
The British, who came in next, were going through their prudish Victorian phase and promptly dittoed this. So obscenity became associated with sex and nudity, in a total reversal of our own traditions which celebrated both.
It may be time in India to re-examine this Semitic view of sex and tried to rediscover its timeless beauty, joy and magic. Instead of harassing artists, writers, film makers who try to take sex out of the closet, India should support them. It would likely reduce violence and hatred throughout society.
It will also hopefully diminish India's obsession with divisive forces like religion, caste, community, sect and revive the romance of the male-female relationship. Crimes against women will come down. For very few things have the seductive power to overcome the vulgarity of violence and the fetish of faith. Sex is luckily one of them.
So what happens to vulgarity? If sex is out, what will the obscenity hunters chase? I can suggest several alternatives. Let's start with what the Prime Minister referred to the other day the vulgarity of ostentation. Creating wealth is fine up to a point but, beyond that, wealth must serve the interests of the community. You cannot have 40 per cent of the people barely able to afford one square meal a day while the families of the ruling elite spend 60 per cent of their waking hours shopping around in swanky malls. For me, that's vulgarity. And, as you can see, this vulgarity of hyper consumerism is hurting India more than anything else. It's dividing us into two. Those who can flaunt the new lifestyle versus those who are barely surviving.
Vulgarity is the way we run our democracy where the corrupt buy and occupy every nodal office. Rajiv Gandhi once said that only 10 per cent of what the State spends on the common man ever reaches him. That was in his time. Today, we would be lucky if 2 per cent reaches the common man. Isn't that vulgarity? The fact that those who are hired or voted into office to reduce poverty actually spend all their time looting the state and collaborating with the rich. Maharashtrians complain that Mumbai has been taken over by outsiders. Not true. Mumbai has been taken over by builders, who (irrespective of where they come from) are a law unto themselves. It is these builders who have stripped ordinary people of their dignity and lured them to sell off their homes and forget their culture by tempting them with easy money. It is they who have created these artificial property prices that none of us can afford.
Vulgarity is forcing second hand booksellers off the streets. Vulgarity is fake encounters. Vulgarity is the all encompassing corruption we live with and often succumb to. Vulgarity is destroying the environment, vandalising our heritage, and outraging senior citizens. Vulgarity is rich, ostentatious weddings and dowries. Vulgarity is the fact that India produces 70 per cent of the world's fake drugs that kill millions. Vulgarity is intolerance, brutality, bloodshed. Vulgarity is raping the soul of Mumbai and trying to make it into a silly, fourth rate version of Shenzhen.
Sex is clean, noble, honest when practising safely. Irrespective of where you get it. In your bedroom. On the internet. In a dance bar. On a painter's canvas. Off the movie screen. Or in some lonely park after sundown. At least it brings two people together and does not tear them apart or destroy their homes, culture, dignity. So why give sex a bad name and allow much worse to flourish?

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Hymenoplasty - Restoring Virginity In France

Sitting in a cafe near the Champs Elysees, the 26-year-old French-born woman of Algerian descent looks like any other Parisian. But two months ago, she did something none of her friends have done.

She had her hymen re-sewn, technically making her a virgin again.

"I'm glad I had it done," said the woman, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity. "I wanted to reconstruct part of my life, to reconstruct myself so that I could feel better about myself."

This 30-minute outpatient procedure, called "hymenoplasty" and costing between 1,500 and 3,000 euros ($2,000-$4,000), is increasingly popular among young women of North African descent in France.

No exact figures exist to say how many such operations are done, but the woman's surgeon says he gets three to five queries and performs one to three hymenoplasties each week. Demand has been rising for the past three or four years.

Doctor Marc Abecassis, whose office is near the chic Champs Elysees, sees the rise in religion among France's five million Muslims fuelling this trend. His patients are between 18 and 45 years old, Muslim, born both in France and in North Africa.

"Many of my patients are caught between two worlds," said Abecassis. They have had sex already but are expected to be virgins at marriage according to a custom that he called "cultural and traditional, with enormous family pressure".

For this woman, the decision to have the surgery came after she broke up with a boyfriend who had pressured her into having sex. Unable to cope with breaking family tradition, she felt a hymenoplasty would help put her life back together again.

Another of Abecassis' patients, a 22-year-old Algerian immigrant who asked to be called Karima, said most young women had the operation to respect their culture or family tradition, not for religious reasons.

In fact, neither woman is a practicing Muslim. They dress, speak and act like other young Parisians, but are also part of a growing silent group of women who juggle traditional Muslim and modern French values.

All the women who spoke to Reuters did so condition that their identities not be revealed.

DON'T DISAPPOINT THE FIANCE

Karima also lost her virginity to an ex-boyfriend. She plans to marry soon and her fiancé expects her to be a virgin. So last month, she commuted in from an eastern suburb of Paris, where she lives with her parents, and had the surgery.

The next day she was back at work. "I don't want to disappoint my fiancé," she said, adjusting her glasses and brushing her highlighted brown hair from her face. "I wouldn't have had the surgery if I hadn't met him."

A leading Muslim spokesman said Islam says bride and groom should be virgins before marriage, but did not take a clear stand for or against hymenoplasties.

"If someone committed a sin, the essential thing is to repent," said Lhaj Thami Breze, head of the Union of French Islamic Organizations.

For many doctors, resewing the hymen goes against their ideals of sexual freedom and personal liberty.

"The surgery is an attack on women's dignity," said Professor Jacques Lansac, president of The National College of Gynaecologists and Obstetricians of France. "We will not take part in a market that places value on the quality of a woman -- if she's good or not. It is an attack on women's liberty."

He also argued that any doctor who performed these operations at state hospitals violated France's legal separation of church and state.

The church-state issue flared up in 2004 when France passed a law banning religious garb, notably headscarves, from state primary and secondary schools.

Since then, Abecassis said, some Muslims in France have been putting much more emphasis on certain customs as a way of expressing their identity. "Today it's the two 'V's' -- veil and virginity," he said. "It's a social phenomenon."

Surprisingly, French social security reimburses some of the cost of the operation in cases of rape or trauma. "Ninety-nine percent of the time, the claim is a fraud," he added.

Still, Abecassis defended the operations and said he helped patients who could not pay his 2,500 euro fee. "This surgery gives them another chance," he said. "It's a rehabilitation. For many, it's the only solution."

ANOTHER PATIENT AWAITS

Sitting in the same cafe, a 19-year-old Moroccan studying in Paris who asked to be called Amel spoke just before her first consultation with Abecassis.

"I dated a boy when I was 15 and I didn't even realize what had happened," she said, referring to her first and only sexual experience. "I didn't understand what I did."

Her parents introduced her to a young man earlier this year, and they plan to wed when she returns to Morocco in June. But he would not accept a non-virgin, so she needs the operation soon.

Amel is scraping together the monthly allowance sent by her parents and emptying her savings account to pay for it. Two friends back home will lend her the remaining 1,000 euros.

"If my mother ever found out about this, she would have a mental breakdown," Amel said. "I don't want to have this surgery, but I don't have any choice."

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